How Did New Orleans Create Divided Social Standards?

Without African Culture jazz might not have become what it is today, in the 1920’s people could see the increase of black culture, including music. African music brought many factors to the production of jazz, including African drum beats. With the blacks and whites sharing more ideas about music, this helped with the idea of jazz. New music brought new women, “flappers”, “flappers” were women who were more independent than past generations. They brought a new look to the 1920’s, started doing different things that women normally wouldn't have done, and they always knew the latest dances.

This time period blossomed and had an exploration of creative arts that were performed by African Americans and one of the most influential in African American History. During this time, African Americans paraphrased the stereotype of “Negro” that influenced black people relationship with their heritage. The Harlem Renaissance has been explored through literature, music, art, drama, and poetry. The sound of the saxophone and the trumpets contributed to the Jazz and Blues Music. After the civil war, many African American soldiers came home and they decided to “migrate” from the South due to the discrimination and prejudice received by laws and codes.

How did the cultural and social context influence New Orleans music in the late 1800’s? New Orleans from the beginning had always been a culturally diverse city in America. This goes back as far as the late 18th century, when cultures would come together for one afternoon a week to try and battle the harsh southern heat. City leaders allowed for black slaves to gather together in what is known as Congo Square. They would bring everything from drums to bells and any other musical instruments and gather around, roughly by african tribes, to sing and dance.

Social determinants have become an influential component of innovation within traditional areas of research, from overall health of communities to disaster management. Starting in the 1980’s, researchers began to understand that social contexts, both micro and macro, have a significant impact on both individuals and the community as a whole when discussing response and resilience to disasters. After the chaos of Hurricane Katrina, after the sheer difference of separate populations ability to cope during the disaster area came to light, researchers began to elucidate the social factors which affect disaster response and ways to assess those for future disasters. The three largest areas of concerns that should be considered are social stratification and class, race and

Of course, this was all made possible due to the breeding ground of New Orleans. New Orleans was the fertile ground for musical innovation for notably six reasons. One, as a port city, it didn’t have strict cultural boundaries. There were no ghettos, and ethnic groups were intermingled, allowing for cultural exposure and diversity. Two, New Orleans had a strong Afro-Caribbean culture, evident of Place de Negres – or Congo Square – where people gathered to dance, drum, and entertain in accordance to the African tradition.

We all know that the power of the Black community in America came from deep in their soul. Their strength and will to fight segregation , and their love can be felt in the civil rights movement. Their ability to express their minds in a non- violent way connects to the soul music that James Brown created. James Brown’s music was a mixture of R&B and gospel. Which in a way connects to what Dr. Martin Luther King was trying to do during the civil rights movement.

The Harlem Renaissance took place during the 1920s through the 1930s, and is noted as the first point in American history when African-American achievements in art, music, and literature flourished and were widely accepted. In the early part of the 1900s, the American public was shifting its interests from the “minstrel show” format to that of vaudeville. This created a wave of changes in theater in egeneral, and one of the most interesting was the appearance of African American actors and purely African American “themes”. For example, the 1917 play “Three Plays for a Negro Theater” was a first of its kind and eliminated the stereotypical portrayal of “blackface” in favor of African American actors insteadMany view this as the birth of the

Jazz music challenged traditional notions of race and gender, and it provided a space for artists to experiment and push the boundaries of musical

Harlem Renaissance is described as a movement which gained momentum in the 1920s especially after the World War I up to mid-1930s. This movement was characterised by what Richard Wormser calls “cultural, social, and artistic explosion” (Wormser, “The Harlem Renaissance 1917-1935”). Harlem during this period became a cultural center for artists, writers, poets and musicians. It can be noticed that the Harlem Renaissance was a male centric movement. Maureen Honey points out that many critics saw the women poets and authors as part of the school of “Raceless literature” (Bloom 224).

Motown was a transformative sound that arrived just at the height of the civil rights movement. Such success coming from a black business and black artists forced the rest of America to reexamine their racial prejudices that they still clung to. It seemed that it’s founder, Berry Gordy, knew from the start that Motown was something special when he hung a sign that read “Hitsville USA” above the recording studio’s headquarters. The success was almost instant for most Motown artists with song after song becoming number one hits on major music charts. However, the success was not easy, as it took strenuous amounts of work to mold the artist’s looks and sounds into something that would popularize them among the white population.

As I began to research schools segregation, I began to wonder: Why is segregation still occurring in New Orleans schools? According to my research, most New Orleans schools are still segregated. What’s more, segregation has many negative consequences for students 82% of New Orleans schools are segregated by race. When the U.S Supreme Court ruled that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional. In New Orleans schools, segregation is still occurring.

The Cotton Club Harlem was a vibrant community filed with culture and in the 1920 's was the Harlem renaissance. The Harlem renaissance was a African American movement that enlightened music, literature and many more things(Pietrusza, David). African American used this to bring a style to there appeal like jazz, but also was a movement to use there talents to fight for equal rights and equality. The cotton club was in the middle of the this cultural movement in which they saw that there was profit to make. As the cotton club soon began to became a well known club it started to attract many white clients who were looking for a good time.

As many know New Orleans is the home of Jazz and Blues music which are prominent music themes during Mardi Gras. How did Jazz and Blues originate in New Orleans and become deeply infused in the culture? In order to answer this question, one must look back to when Louisiana was a French territory. Under French rule,“article five of the code noir…exempted slaves from forced labor on Sundays and religious holidays. ”(Johnson).

Music is not only used to capture peoples hearing but it is used to power peoples minds through the power of an individuals voice. Music served a critical role in the African American’s lives, as it was used to uplift their spirits as well as providing them with hope and strength to fight for civil rights and overcome segregation between white superiority and the unfair treatment of the inferior black. Music was defined as the voice of the people that lived through the oppression of the civil rights movement. During the civil rights movement, there were many different types of music genres sung, dependent on the culture, this included spiritual music; gospel and even folk music, which was performed by musicians, singers and even people of any musical talents. Through this, it brought about the uniting of people to join together and sing songs that helped them go through the oppression of the civil rights movement.

Blacks and whites were now considered “separate but equal”, where in public they had separate bathrooms and water fountains to say the least. Because of Jim Crow Laws, Creoles (individuals with French or black ancestry) were labeled with African-Americans; this “uptown/downtown” theory said that blacks (uptown) and Creoles of Color (downtown) were to be mixed because of the segregation laws. Although these laws were set upon the African Americas and Creoles, jazz music still flourished in the city of New Orleans. There were always events being held in New Orleans, and with each event, there was always